EMPIRE (Buena Vista Home Entertainment, 2005, two single-sided discs, $29.95, Tuesday, November 29, 2005) had the misfortune to appear on NBC as a limited mini series at the same time that the much more free and less ratings- and advertiser-dependent HBO was initiating its series ROME. But both of them suffer from the same hubris, which was to take the returns on GLADIATOR five years ago seriously.

Responding to a movie trend within Hollywood itself is like changing directions on an oil tanker. By the time the executives were able to follow GLADIATOR's lead and install similar historical projects the fever had passed, and the studios were saddled with big clunkers such as TROY and ALEXANDER. I'm sure the filmmakers involved are happy, because they took the money and ran with it. There were two misleading things with the success of GLADIATOR. One was that its returns had more to do with Russell Crowe fever than ancient Rome, and the other was that it wasn't all that good a film, and most people (who didn't go on to buy the DVD, anyway) had an "eh" feeling when it was done. As my colleague Damon Houx likes to say, Just because a movie made $180 million dollars doesn't mean that anyone liked it.

But I am surprised that it took so long for a pair of similarly themed TV shows to reach the screen. ROME has the benefit over EMPIRE of seven additional hours with which to develop a story and delineate characters. And if DEADWOOD has Walter Hill has a godfather, ROME has John Milius, who has somehow managed to have a career in the liberal boroughs of Hollywood despite vocally pining for a revision of American life along Objectivist guidelines. It also has a great pair of photogenic actors in Kevin McKidd and Ray Stevenson as the Aubrey-Maturin style friends who have to wend their way through the intrigues surrounding Julius Ceasar's reign, soon coming to an end.

I knew that ROME was going to be a great series from the first episode when McKidd and Stevenson play off each other really well in the scene where they rescue the eagle and Julius's nephew at the same time. There is a moment when they are walking away from the nephew, who then makes some unexpectedly savvy remarks of a politic nature, and McKidd and Stevenson turn together, each with his own expression of surprise and intense interest and walking back to the kid. It was a wonderfully little actorial moment that showed them very much in synch. The whole scene is good. It's also one of those clever scenes that starts with the aftermath of a big battle, implying a lot of action without having to show it to you, demanding you use your imagination.

ROME also has the virtue of HBO's freedom from censorship in language and violence and sex. EMPIRE's DVD box says it all about the show's compromised origins in a sad little sticker on the front: ""With unrated, unaired scenes." So let me see if I get this straight. If I was bored to death by it during its original broadcast, you think I am going to give it another change because the thing now has about 40 seconds of new orgy footage? Sorry, but this EMPIRE was corrupt from its core on out.

Essentially, EMPIRE tells the story of Tyrannus (Jonathan Cake) a Maximus style slave sold into gladiatorial games who is tapped by Julius (Colm Feore), in his death throes, to protect his nephew and heir, Octavius (Santiago Cabrera), and help him reach ascension. And that's what happens over the next six hours. Tyrannus trains and protects Octavius, and then loses him, and then changes sides, and then changes back again. The mini ends with Octavius finally gaining the purple. It's unclear whether this was all meant to be the prelude to a regular TV series, though the six hours of the mini are structured like six eps of a show, as opposed to one big story.

If ROME has the mouth-mangling Ciarån Hinds as Gaius Julius Caesar, EMPIRE has the equally mouth mushing Colm Feore. Hinds is regal and Roman looking, but Feore is more subtle and quietly powerful. Unfortunately, EMPIRE starts off with his death, so the heart of the show is gone in sixty minutes. The rest is fleeing on horseback and incomprehensible battle scenes in shrouded woods. In fact, this show unveils a very Christian looking Rome. Though ROME was truly shot in Rome no one looks particularly Roman (more Northern Italian, if anything). Perhaps there was hesitancy against offending Middle America with a much too ethnic cast in a story about the birth of civilization.

EMPIRE is credited to Tom Wheeler. In the extras, one of the producers likens the writer to Shakespeare. Ah, Shakespeare, Ibsen, Shaw — Tom Wheeler. But EMPIRE owes less to these lofty predecessors than to Mario Puzo. At root, it's tale of a man, Octavius, having power thrust upon him, and growing into it, is more Sicilian than Roman, and tracks with THE GODFATHER's account of the rise of Michael Corleone. Still, that can't help improve the dialogue. Maybe you have to hear it to note how bad it sounds (it's at the start of chapter 5), but in one scene Octavius shows up unannounced on the steps of Cicero's estate, and the slavegirl answering the bell says, "Who may I say is calling." She sounded like a maid dealing with an encyclopedia salesman.

One senses a dutiful but unenthusiastic release of EMPIRE on DVD. The widescreen transfer (1.78:1, enhanced) is adequate, and the sound (DD 5.1) is nice (there are also English subtitles), but there are few extras. On disc two there are two bonus features, "Rebuilding an Empire," which is informative EPK stuff, and the cool "Empire: Before & After," which highlights all the digital effects via a musical quasi-slide show display, sans narration.

Disc one also has trailers and teasers for THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA, FLIGHTPLAN, TV on DVD, LOST, ALIAS FOURTH SEASON, EXTREME MAKEOVER HOME EDITION, and LOST SEASON TWO. The animated, musical menu offers 11- and 13-chapter scene selection, and the discs come in a dual disc box with a slip case.

If EMPIRE is a backdating, so to speak, as opposed to an updating of THE GODFATHER, then SKY HIGH (Disney DVD, 2005, $29.95, Tuesday, November 29, 2005) is an unofficial variation on, a super duper version of the Harry Potter films and stories. Both have a reluctant hero questioning his value as a sorcerer/superhero, who attends a special institution designed just for such beings, which entails a secret route at the beginning of each school year, whereupon he is assailed by competing aspirants for his esteemed position as the heir of elites and where he finds solace among nerds whom he gravitates to as what he takes to be his real constituency.

SKY HIGH is a teen comedy, or rather pre-teen comedy, with many fathers (there are no less than three credited writers, and they and the unnamed legions behind them failed to make the film funny). It evokes memories of other super hero comedies of recent vintage such as the comic takes on superheroes found in Ben Stiller's MYSTERY MEN, or the Thomas Hayden Church starer THE SPECIALS. And of course, Disney's own THE INCREDIBLES, itself with roots, intentional or not, in WATCHMEN.

And in fact fathers is the theme. The film begins simply enough. Will Stronghold (Michael Angarano) is attending his first day of high school, along with his neighbor and childhood friend, Layla (Danielle Panabaker). But these are no ordinary freshmen. Each is the child of a super hero, and has, or is expecting to receive, their powers. Layla can make plants grow (for want of a better tag for her X-man like skill). Will doesn't yet know what he can do. As a consequence of his negligible power, Will is assigned, along with Layla, to the "sidekick" track of classes, taught by an amiable loser named Mr. Boy (Kids in the Hall's Dave Foley). He continues to be bullied by the inevitable class brutes, and irritates the darkly handsome Warren Peace (Steven Strait), whose own father was put in the slammer by Will's father, Steve Stronghold, a.k.a., The Commander (Kurt Russell). In a cafeteria showdown with the fire flinging Peace, Will finally discovers that his secret power is super strength, just like his dad's. Beneath all this is the fact, to which the audience is at first only privy, that an old enemy, or heir of an enemy, is back and out to get The Commander, and his wife (Will's mother), Jet Stream (Kelly Preston). The way all this plays out is totally predictable, but its Disney style presentation happens to be.

The opening prologue is told in "comic strip" form, which highlights a certain difficulty with the film. A lot, indeed, too much, is a "given, "as far as the viewer is concerned. Otherwise, the comic book roots of the superhero are forgotten. SKY HIGH is set in a real world, but even there how some people could have super powers goes unexplained. As per a low budget Disney film, simple things such as the street where Will lives is utterly underpopulated. And the soundtrack is created as if from a 1985 FM playlist. You want to like this film. It's got a premise that could have inspired great wit, if only the filmmakers were making a satire and not a cozy kids film.

BV's widescreen (2.345:1, enhanced) disc of SKY HIGH, which comes also in a pan and scan and a UMD version, is a fine DVD account of the film, with DD 5.1 is English, French, and Spanish. For extras, it has an "Alternate Opening," which actually sets up the film much better than the current opening, an array of "Super Bloopers," which is little more than people laughing at their own fuck ups, the music video, an EPK style making of, and a feature on the stunts. Finally, there are trailers for LADY AND THE TRAMP, THE GREATEST GAME EVER PLAYED, GLORY ROAD, ONCE UPON A MATTRESS, THE PROUD FAMILY MOVIE/RAVEN'S HOUSE PARTY, TOY STORY 2, and KIM POSSIBLE, plus, you can " Register Your DVD" (has anyone every done this?). The animated musical menu offers 18-chapter scene selection.

And incidentally, if you are interested in KILL BILL, you might find my new book, KILL BILL: AN UNOFFICIAL CASEBOOK useful. It is now available in fine bookstores everywhere, or from Amazon.

I've got a new book coming out on an aspect of film noir I call film soleil, titled simply FILM SOLEIL. It is sure to alter film criticism as we know it to its very core. Order it now!

And if you are interested in what I sound like, I can be heard on KBOO radio (90.7 FM) the second and the fourth Wednesday of the month, at 9 AM in the morning (Pacific Standard Time) on Ed Goldberg's show MOVIE TALK along with Dawn Taylor. It's available via streaming audio (in 20 Kbps Stereo). The next broadcast is Wednesday, December 14, at 9 AM.

COMING SOON:SAW II, numerous Alfred Hitchcock films, the 3rd Annual DVD Tray of Terror, FLIGHTPLAN and REDEYE, DEAD AND BREAKFAST, REMINGTON STEEL and other TV mystery shows, many STAR TREKS, and more!

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